I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. ~Reuben Blades

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn't theirs. ~Terry Pratchett

In all honesty, there is beleived to be a basis for the story, but it actually is a story which was edited for the biblical version.

It is most likely based off of the life of Ziusudra, a Sumerian King) and what some historians beleive to be a lucky escape from a flood encompassing large areas around Baghdad.

The Noah`s ark story however (be it true or not) was a popular part of Sumerian Mythology and its creation story, which wikipedia actually shows quite well as to how the story has had slight variation over the years.

"the storm had swept...for seven days and seven nights" — Ziusudra 203 "For seven days and seven nights came the storm" — Atrahasis III,iv, 24 "Six days and seven nights the wind and storm" — Gilgamesh XI, 127 "rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights" — Genesis 7:12

So did the Noah`s ark story happen? No where close to the biblical events (hell, to collect all of the creatures needed for the event would have taken more years than Noah supposedly lived). However the Sumerian myth from which it is based does have some merit, but with more earthly means and not so much every animal as much as effectivly a royal zoo (in some historians oppinions anyway)

Eco-Friendly Green Cyborg Santa Claus

Contrary to the propaganda, we live in probably the least materialistic culture in history. If we cared about the things of the world, we would treat them quite differently. We would be concerned with their materiality. We would be interested in their beginnings and their ends, before and after they left our grasp.

Socialdemokraterne wrote:We are required to suppose that two (and only two, one male and one female) of every land-based, sexually reproducing species present on the planet at the time was somehow preserved.

And in this we arrive at a serious problem: inbreeding. Inbreeding would be, as of the first generation of offspring, impossible to avoid since all members of that generation are directly related as brothers and sisters. The second generation of offspring, therefore, would begin a cycle of accumulation of deleterious recessive genes. This is especially problematic for your those species on the boat since the extremely low population makes them all endangered by default. Endangered species with extreme genetic uniformity are especially susceptible to environmental factors and therefore extremely vulnerable to extinction.

Now let's address the matter of water-based species. The fact of the matter is that there is a great diversity of ecological niches occupied by water-based species. A freshwater fish could not easily survive in brackish water, nor could a saltwater fish survive easily in a lake filled with freshwater. The species which would survive would have to be highly resistant to sudden fluctuations in water temperature, pH, and salinity. There's also the added problem for predatory and omnivorous species finding their prey in a significantly expanded environment (not to mention the problem for herbivorous species whose food supply has been killed by constantly harsh weather conditions and the absence of sunlight with which to carry out photosynthesis).

Congratulations - you have made a post that was well-crafted and researched enough that I guarantee the OP will never respond to it or address it. And yeah people, there's no argument here. He's either trolling or deliberately deluding himself at this point.

When the war is overGot to start againTry to hold a trace of what it was back thenYou and I we sent each other storiesJust a page I'm lost in all its gloryHow can I go home and not get blown away

LogiChristianity wrote:No, I provided the facts in the OP. Which has facts in the footnotes.

Care to explain the inbreeding to restart humanity afterwards?While you are at it, explain how Adam and Eve and their family managed it? Where did Cain and Abel get mates without doing some horrible incest with the only woman there was? Even if you count Adam's first Lilith partner (who was edited out the bible), five people is still not enough.

Lilith only came to be in the Talmud, so she wasn't really edited out of the Bible.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.-FDR

North Franklin wrote:What did they all eat when they got off the ark? Flood kills vegetation=herbivores die=carnivores die=no life. This is obviously wrong, which makes me question the whole premise of the flood.

How do you know the flood would kill vegetation? Vegetation can survive underwater.

They'd be buried under several tuns of mud.

Also, stop cherrypicking what you respond to and what you don't; if you're going to have an argument you should be prepared to respond to everyone rather than those whose points don't completely deride your argument.

LogiChristianity wrote:There's no solid proof that humans weren't around when Pangaea broke apart.

They're called fossils.

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."—former Nixon domestic policy chief John Ehrlichman

In fact, let's do some rapid math. The flood "covered the earth's mountains". Mt Everist is 29,000 feet. Now, one atmosphere of pressure is 14.7 PSI. 33 feet of water is equivalent to one atmosphere of pressure.

Now, if you dump 29,000 feet of water on the earth, marine life can't just rise up. They still need sufficient oxygen. Now, at that depth, what is now "sea level" would be under 878 atmospheres of pressure. Or 13,000 pounds of pressure pre square inch. Enough to bend iron.

Also, land vegetation can't survive under salt water. Also, you can't just add shit to fill the Bible's plotholes that it doesn't even allude to. Also, inbreeding. Also, not enough space on the ark for every single species of spider/beetle, much less the other stuff. Also, the whole story is blatantly derivative of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

What else do you need, OP?

When the war is overGot to start againTry to hold a trace of what it was back thenYou and I we sent each other storiesJust a page I'm lost in all its gloryHow can I go home and not get blown away

Genesis 6:15 in the Bible tells us the Ark's dimensions were at least 135 meters long (300 cubits), 22.5 meters wide (50 cubits), and 13.5 meters high (30 cubits). That's 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high! It could have been larger, because several larger-sized cubits were used. But the 45-centimeter (18-inch) cubit is long enough to show the enormous size of the Ark.

LogiChristianity wrote:There's no solid proof that humans weren't around when Pangaea broke apart.

Fossils. They're pretty solid. In fact, they're solid rock. The reason Pangaea was first theorized to exist was because of dinosaur fossils found in africa and south america. They were of the same species, so the only way it made sense was if they swam thousands of kilometres or the continents were pushed together.

Richard Dawkins wrote:There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.

Socialdemokraterne wrote:We are required to suppose that two (and only two, one male and one female) of every land-based, sexually reproducing species present on the planet at the time was somehow preserved.

And in this we arrive at a serious problem: inbreeding. Inbreeding would be, as of the first generation of offspring, impossible to avoid since all members of that generation are directly related as brothers and sisters. The second generation of offspring, therefore, would begin a cycle of accumulation of deleterious recessive genes. This is especially problematic for those species on the boat since the extremely low population makes them all endangered by default. Endangered species with extreme genetic uniformity are especially susceptible to environmental factors and therefore extremely vulnerable to extinction.

Now let's address the matter of water-based species. The fact of the matter is that there is a great diversity of ecological niches occupied by water-based species. A freshwater fish could not easily survive in brackish water, nor could a saltwater fish survive easily in a lake filled with freshwater. The species which would survive would have to be highly resistant to sudden fluctuations in water temperature, pH, and salinity. There's also the added problem for predatory and omnivorous species finding their prey in a significantly expanded environment (not to mention the problem for herbivorous species whose food supply has been killed by constantly harsh weather conditions and the absence of sunlight with which to carry out photosynthesis).

As for inbreeding, where's your proof that he didn't choose the best and most diverse examples of each species? That could've happened, and that would solve your problem.

As for saltwater and freshwater, God could've just split the waters and made them not mix, like when Moses split the red sea.

Rubiconic Crossings V2 rev 1f wrote:Getting the whales in there must have been a right pain the arse...notwithstanding the creatures found at the bottom of the oceans at depths over several kilometres...

According to the OP the they didn't bring aquatic animals, if that were true most aquatic animals would be extinct.

I always thought the myth was every animal, not only land animals...happy to be wrong coz well...its a myth

LogiChristianity wrote:No, I provided the facts in the OP. Which has facts in the footnotes.

Care to explain the inbreeding to restart humanity afterwards?While you are at it, explain how Adam and Eve and their family managed it? Where did Cain and Abel get mates without doing some horrible incest with the only woman there was? Even if you count Adam's first Lilith partner (who was edited out the bible), five people is still not enough.

Ah yes, I recall that speech. He then snorted some coke and said death to all the white people, while confessing how he was born in the sewers of Bangladesh and was a Buddhist hitman before becoming senator.